Relationships between magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety in a sample of non-clinical children

Simonds, LM, Demetre, JD and Read, C
(2009)
Relationships between magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety in a sample of non-clinical children
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27 (2).
pp. 457-471.

Abstract

Despite the obvious phenomenological similarities between magical thinking and obsessive-compulsiveness, the relationship between them has been the subject of few empirical investigations in samples of children. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between a general epistemic stance towards magical causation and tendencies towards obsessive-compulsiveness in a non-clinical sample of schoolchildren. One-hundred and two children, aged between 5 and 10 years (48 boys, 54 girls), completed questionnaire measures designed to assess magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety. School teachers completed a measure of strengths and difficulties for each child. General belief in magical causation was correlated with all types of anxiety, not just obsessive-compulsiveness, with significant correlations shown for boys in the sample, but not girls. General belief in magical causation contributed little to the prediction of obsessive-compulsiveness beyond general anxiety. In this study, a general epistemic stance towards magical causation did not differentiate obsessive-compulsiveness from other anxiety dimensions. The findings are considered in the context of developmental theories of magical and scientific causal reasoning.

This is an electronic version of a paper published in Simonds LM, Demetre JD, Read C (2009). Relationships between magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety in a sample of non-clinical children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 27(2):457-471. Available online at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjdp.2009.27.issue-2/issuetoc